The new deal came as Warwickshire firm Valpak held a ceremony last week to officially opened its Preston plastic sorting and grading facility, following last year’s acquisition of the Waste Management Group.
The addition of the Preston site, and a new investment programme, means Valient is expecting to expand the 250,000 tonnes of recyclable packaging it handled each year to as much as 400,000 tonnes this year.
Cedilla
With much of the material being sent to reprocessors in continental Europe and the Far East, the company is to use the REgenerist IT software from Cedilla to help keep track of all transactions – from collecting waste from Valpak members to transporting it to recycling facilities.
The system will also assist with the issuing of producer responsibility evidence – known as packaging waste recovery notes (PRNs) or their export equivalent PERNs – to allow Valpak members including Tesco, Sainsburys, Nestle and Shell to comply with the packaging regulations.
Jon Clement, logistics manager at Valient said: “Our partners in China buy the waste from us, and we pay for the shipping. We required REgenerist to generate sales and purchase invoices linked to the contract, but also support us in our Duty of Care during the shipment.”
Inspection documents and photo evidence of containers are stored on the new IT system, with Valient able to track when containers arrive at port destinations, as well as helping the company deal with customs documentation.
Mike Dickson, Cedilla Systems managing director, said Valient will save money through its use of the REgenerist computer system. “A typical mid-sized waste management company (with a turnover of 750,000 per month, or 9 million per year) could save around 14,000 per year and free up as much as 172,000 of liquid assets by using a system such as REgenerist,” he said.
Preston
The opening of Valient’s Preston facility last week marked a period of investment in the site since its acquisition in June last year.
May 2007 will see the site taking delivery of one of the world’s largest automatic twin-ram baling machines to help boost the typical 50,000 tonne-per-annum capacity of the facility.
Traditionally a plastic bottle and film handling facility, the plant now handles steel and aluminium cans as well as 20,000 tonnes of mixed plastic bottles, using automated machinery to separate them, including optical sorting technology.
The investment programme will also see more undercover storage areas established to cut down on wind-blown losses and improve material quality, while further land has been acquired to provide parking space for the company’s collection fleet.
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